My Path to Immortality with a Blade of Grass - Chapter 11

12 — Extra 3: The Parrot’s Story

I was a parrot.

Perhaps because we can imitate human speech, parrots are born understanding humans.

But a lot of the time, I wished I’d never gained awareness at all.

I wished I were some stupid creature who knew and felt nothing.

Because my owner was just! So! STUPID!

Long ago, I was king of the birds, living in the enormous cage at the very center of the bird-and-flower market.

Then that idiot, a brat at the time, spotted me and began wailing for his parents to buy me.

They took me home.

For years afterward, I had to grit my beak and put up with his unreasonable demands. One day he’d pull out one of my feathers. The next, he’d insist on stuffing me under the covers to sleep with him.

His parents were busy. Most of the time, I was his only company.

So, as a mature parrot, I also had to stop the little brat from doing things such as touching electrical switches with wet hands or playing in the mud bare-bottomed.

In theory, he was my owner.

In my heart, I was his dad.

Why did I never consider flying away if I disliked the idiot so much?

Perhaps because a parrot’s world is full of color.

Every morning, I traded insults with the sparrows outside the window. At noon, I provoked the neighbors’ cat. At night, I sneaked a look at the television in the little shop downstairs. From Qiong Yao romances to Young and Dangerous gangster movies, it did wonders for my vocabulary.

But in that stupid human’s world, there was only me.

Parrots raise their own chicks.

The idiot’s parents weren’t parrots.

They were cuckoos.

They’d brought their child into the world before they were ready to be parents, then simply abandoned him in pursuit of their so-called freedom.

As a parrot, I despised their freedom.

The idiot was so sensible it hurt.

He’d walk home alone through the sunset, then stand on a little stool to cook and wash the dishes himself.

Later, I learned to switch on the small orange lamp by the window before he got home from school.

Then he’d be a child with a bird waiting for him.

But the first time he came home to that light of welcome, all I could do was watch the hope in his eyes slowly turn to tears.

In that instant, who had he hoped would be waiting at home?

That was the first time I felt sad that I wasn’t his real parent.

“It’s okay,” he said when I flew over and nuzzled his cheek.

He was comforting me.

“Mom and Dad are busy. I’m all grown up. I don’t need someone with me. And I’m doing great! Sometimes I burn the food, sometimes I get lonely, sometimes I fall and hurt myself… But so far, my survival rate is still a hundred percent. That must mean I’m doing pretty well, right?”

He tried to smile and make a joke of it.

But great tears kept rolling down his cheeks, one after another.

Until he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

He hugged me and sobbed.

After that, I switched on the lamp and waited for him every day.

And he remained that sensible, independent child.

But little children shouldn’t have to be so sensible and independent.

One day, his parents were home for once.

He came back covered in scrapes. On the way home in the gathering dark, he’d missed his footing and fallen down an earthen slope.

Faced with his parents’ rare concern, he gave a brave little smile and said, “It’s nothing.”

Then he walked past them and came to me.

Only then did his mouth crumple.

“It hurts!” he wailed.

I spread my wings and gave him a parrot’s embrace.

I looked at his parents’ heartbroken faces with something close to spite.

Look. Your child would rather seek comfort from a parrot than try to find any warmth in you.

Your child was mine now!

That night, after my idiot fell asleep, his parents had a terrible argument.

It turned out they weren’t cuckoos.

They were exhausted “parrots.”

They both had to work overtime, day and night, just to support their child.

I watched his mother count on her fingers how much more they would need for his clothes, shoes, food, and school fees.

I watched his father scratch his head, calculating how much more overtime he could do, or what extra jobs he could take, to make up the lost income if his mother stayed home.

I heaved a long sigh inwardly.

Being human was hard.

A good parrot must learn to raise his own chick.

The chick might happen to be human, but the principle was much the same.

Please don’t get hung up on the details.

So I stole the dead mouse the cat next door had brought home as a gift and delivered it to our kitchen.

At the family’s delighted screams, I quietly puffed out my chest.

Deed done, I slipped away, seeking neither fame nor reward.

That was probably the chivalrous spirit of the wandering heroes in the shop’s television dramas!

After that, whatever the cat caught, I stole.

From entire mouse families to family-size buckets of cockroaches, my efforts always earned thrilled screams from the idiot’s family.

There could be no greater praise for my hard work.